Imagine State Route 36 in Chester as a slow-moving, two-lane thoroughfare buffered by bike lanes, parallel parking, and a tree-lined pedestrian path on either side, with benches and tables for outdoor seating. Add decorated crosswalks with flashing lights, and a 12-foot center lane for piling snow in winter.
That’s just part of what’s included in the Chester Main Street Community Connectivity Plan, approved last month by the Plumas County Board of Supervisors.
The goal, said Jim Graham, the county’s principal transportation planner, is to transform Chester’s dominant corridor from one that divides the community to one that connects it. He began working on the concept of a safer, more community-oriented Main Street in 1989, when he began working for Plumas County.
Bill Dennison, who at the time represented Chester and Lake Almanor on the county board of supervisors, was interested in improving Chester’s dominant roadway. He and Graham had many conversations sharing many ideas, but it took 35 years for the concepts to materialize in the formal $500,000 plan.
“This is one of most personally satisfying projects since 1989,” said Graham, who has shepherded it through three-plus decades.
The plan will provide a roadmap to fund and implement transportation infrastructure improvements to the 2-mile corridor, from the airport south of town to the causeway east of Chester. Focused planning started in March 2022, with an assessment of the issues.
In the year of public meetings that followed, the community quickly identified pedestrian access and safety along the four-lane road as a core issue. Traffic is heavy, averaging as much as 6,394 daily vehicles, with logging trucks at times making up 25% of the traffic.
Main Street’s four pedestrian crossings are poorly lighted and dangerous, community members said, and sidewalks everywhere are unsafe. In the few places where they exist, they do not conform to the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“In talking with folks in Chester, Main Street is just a barrier for the community — an antiquated approach to transportation that says ‘let’s just move a whole bunch of cars through without regard for people who live there,’” Graham said.
The new plan calls for reducing four lanes of traffic to two, with a center lane for left-hand turn access and piling snow in winter. A 6-foot bike lane will run adjacent to each traffic lane, with space next to it for parallel parking. Next to that will be a 10-foot shared use path, with benches positioned under trees for pedestrians and families with strollers and bicycles to rest and visit.
Graham said he has been as happy to work on the Chester Main Street project as any in his career. “It’s something that can actually effect change and make people’s lives better.”
Implementation still in the future
The community connectivity plan approved Feb. 20 by the county supervisors sets ambitious goals that now must be put into action with funding, Graham said. This spring, Caltrans will be assessing the Chester corridor for traffic control, pedestrian safety and other issues. Over the next 18 months the state transportation agency will draft a document that will include designs for the actual changes.
It’s important to stay engaged as Caltrans proceeds toward on-the-ground implementation, said Graham. While Caltrans will provide much of the funding, Plumas County will be seeking additional grants to complete some of the amenities outlined by the community: bike lanes, landscaping and benches, for example.
Graham credited Carlos España with providing “the squeaky wheel” that helped move the planning process to its culmination. A former Almanor Recreation and Park District director, España and his wife Susan were “the impetus,” he said: “They partnered with the county to make this plan a reality.”
Graham will be working to identify and apply for grants to fund the many next steps. “This isn’t the end. Just because we have this great plan, we have to be aggressive moving forward to make sure everything we want gets folded into it and it all gets built,” he said.
“I won’t be happy until I can drive down Main Street and see the reality,” Graham said.